Scattered Moments
by Heddwig
Summary: A collection of one-shots and drabbles that couldn't quite become chaptered pieces. All feature Rose Tyler and any incarnation of the Doctor (9th, 10th, 10.2, 11).
1. Doctor

I'm American so if you spot anything that seems out of place, please let me know.

**I do not own DW nor am I affiliated with it. I am not seeking to make profit from this, this merely is just me writing for the benefit of me and others. No infringement meant at all.**

* * *

She changed; he hadn't much time to notice it when they were sprinting toward each other but standing in front of her while she stood just a little in front of Meta-Crisis 10 gave him time to notice. But not to the extent he wanted because just as soon as he was getting adjusted to her more rugged-looking features, the Tardis made a sound…as if the ship were a pushy mother, urging him to get on with it.

Her hair was longer and for a moment, he found himself envious of Meta-Crisis 10. Just a moment.

Some more things were said and before he knew it, Rose pulled Meta-Crisis 10 closer to her for a kissing embrace; sadness pumped in his two hearts and he felt a slight pinch of bitterness, wishing he could kiss her lips…kiss her the way they were doing right now. He waited, or rather he ignored his feelings, and now all he could do was watch.

Then, so that it could be less painful, he turned toward the Tardis and started to return to his blue box, obviously sulking. He knew she had stopped to pull away and watch him leave, he could feel her almost-dazed but stunned eyes pressing into his backside. He had done it again; forced her to stay behind and left her no choice, except this time…there really wasn't a choice.

Unless another rip in time occurred once more, allowing universes to connect in ways they shouldn't. Then she would have another choice, to leave Meta-Crisis 10 behind and chase after the one she fell in love with. And he'd welcome her with wide open eyes and a gaping grin, and perhaps they'd run to each other again without danger pulling them apart but of course….

That's the only way they'd meet again, to protect the many worlds by fending off danger.

He stepped into the Tardis and shut the door, not looking back because doing that would cause him to fall apart in ways he'd rather not admit. He left her with the sound of fading Tardis, left her with a man that wasn't _really_ him.


	2. A Step in the Right Direction

I'm American so if you spot anything that seems out of place, please let me know.

**I do not own DW nor am I affiliated with it. I am not seeking to make profit from this, this merely is just me writing for the benefit of me and others. No infringement meant at all.**

* * *

He could travel in any direction he wanted, of course with a few limitations, and he could enter his companions lives—as a different incarnation or not—before they ever were aware that they met the Doctor. It was bliss, how their lives could still exist before something, or someone, took them away to a year that's unable to revisited or a parallel universe, and it was bloody fascinating. Their lives could repeat much like a skipping song until they were altered by him and yet, it wouldn't have any real effect—the Doctor was careful about that.

The Doctor, more often than not, chose to visit Rose...trek atop the ground of Powell Estate and place each boot-covered foot on each step until he reached her and Jackie's flat. He had many disguises though his fringe and lack-of-eyebrows may have given all of it away but they were such oblivious creatures; _stupid apes_, he used to call them until rather important contradictions swatted his arse a good number of times... now he used that phase a lot less frequently than he had before. The Doctor would pose as many identities, anything just to see his pink and yellow human open the door...the air within their flat would lift into his nostrils and press against his senses.

More often than he'd like, Jackie would come to the door and if it wasn't Jackie, Rose would come and she'd look sour. He wanted to inform her that she would be in for the adventure of her life but he doesn't because his tenth self already had, cowering in the shadows so that his face wouldn't leave any kind of infringing impression on her young, impressionable mind. He'd ponder why, a few seconds of nothingness standing between them both as Rose stood with one hand on the door, and him with his hands in his pockets or reaching for his bowtie. She always looked so radiant with a tongue-in-teeth grin, he absolutely _hated_ seeing her with such a stern expression.

It was intimidating, to say the least, and perhaps even disturbing; as if him, standing outside of her doorway, was the last thing she wanted to deal with.

"Yeah?" She'd sometimes say, her tone dripping with annoyance.

Once, his first time visiting her as his new self, the Doctor felt stumped to say the words he had prepared in the TARDIS, and waved an awkward goodbye and scampered away in the strangest manner he could. No doubt had he left Rose with a story to tell to Jackie. But with each new visit, he got better at it...he was more confident, a lot less removed from her cold disposition.

On his seventh visit he nearly asked her out for tea or coffee but decided otherwise, he knew that despite how much he'd like to mingle with his pink and yellow human is not very wise on his part. He couldn't jinx her first encounter with the Doctor who wore leather and dark-toned jumpers, he couldn't jinx any memories of his own.

Slowly the visits came to a stop, his last being standing a block away as he watched her walk home, a child...

He wanted to see more of her life before he met her, he wanted to see this Jimmy Stone bloke, he wanted to see everything that made Rose, Rose. But he couldn't any longer, he must stop, and so he did.

Despite it being a struggle—almost like weaning a drug addict off of a particular substance—he managed to exile Powell Estate and everything that was in Rose's life before meeting her from his eyes. He no longer walked upon the uneven ground, he no longer creeped up the steps to her flat. He no longer beared witness to her different looks or the messy hallway just behind her, acting as a background.

In order to move forward, he must not go backward.


	3. Compulsive

I'm American so if you spot anything that seems out of place, please let me know.

**I do not own DW nor am I affiliated with it. I am not seeking to make profit from this, this merely is just me writing for the benefit of me and others. No infringement meant at all.**

* * *

Four months after being left behind, for the second time, Rose is just beginning to slip back into place with her Doctor, the Meta-Crisis Doctor, and though she didn't want to admit to him just yet, she was starting to like having her version of him around. Only recently did she just get used to spotting him in the kitchen early in the morning, eating _chips_ of all things to stuff in one's face at four. Sometimes, if she timed her exit just right, she'd catch him with a banana or two as well and then go on about her day-returning to bed after locating the source of constant talking and the shutting of cupboards.

He talked to the flat like it were the TARDIS, as if he were the actual Doctor travelling through time and space with a, usually, female companion going on life-changing adventures. She watched sometimes, just to listen to his ramblings with him unaware of her standing out of view. Listening to him, she realized she missed it-travelling with the Doctor, loving him with each new discovery, and never once being able to sit down for at least an hour.

Instead he left the Meta-Crisis him behind to avert another paradox and Rose was fortunate enough to keep him. Live with him, though at first she loathed the idea, and...

Now, here she was, preparing for work at Torchwood with the Doctor in a robe of sorts as he ate another banana. Which reminded her, she needed to go to the market-with him around, she had to keep heaps of those yellow fruit stocked in the kitchen for his liking.


	4. There Must Only Be One

I'm American so if you spot anything that seems out of place, please let me know.

**I do not own DW nor am I affiliated with it. I am not seeking to make profit from this, this merely is just me writing for the benefit of me and others. No infringement meant at all.**

* * *

He started to kiss a trail along the bottom of her jaw, along the side of her neck, and trailed off at the curve of her supple left shoulder; and she let him, well _not him_ but still a version of him nonetheless which was weird and enjoyable all the same. It was like her first time, painful but it was a good pain. That's what this was...standing in the middle of her square, vacant, bedroom with a plain mattress shoved against one of the walls. Yet, it was entirely human, they wouldn't be making part-human and part-Time Lord babies and Rose wasn't quite sure if she was relieved or not.

While the Meta-Crisis Doctor, _her_ Doctor, caressed her bare arms with his hands, Rose thought of the Doctor she met, not the copy but the one that took hold of her hand and told her to run. What was he doing now? She fell in love with a man-_alien_-that from a human perspective seemed to always be on the run, and quite literally as well, and if on Earth...would he be a kind of...career criminal?

Returning her thoughts to the lips creeping up her nape, Rose grabbed onto one of his hands and pulled it up to her face, observing it for a hesitant while before giving the back of his hand a small fleeting peck. In a way, she liked that she could finally kiss...him, even if his DNA was laced with Donna's, she no longer had to wish and to hope; that was the best part and the part about him having one heart, that was good too...they could, and can, share a life together without her having to be left behind. And he wouldn't have to be distant like the Doctor she originally knew, he wouldn't have to be afraid of being alone and of losing everyone he's grown fond of...he could finally attach himself.

Rose turned around, facing him, and took the sides of his face into her smaller hands with his coming up to overlap hers. Through the faint darkness, moonlight illuminating through her windows, she studied his face with his wild hair and crazy but brilliant eyes; he stared back at her, dazed but aware all the same, and he was glad to...from the memories he had, from all of the knowledge, he was content with being with her though in a slight way, it felt like a life sentence in Hell. But this was what he always wanted, to live a happy life with another and to raise a family into his elder years before passing and he could finally do all of that. With her, with Rose...the girl that made him feel so very alive.

"I love you." Rose whispers, those three words carried so many thoughts behind them and she pondered if he could understand that, he could absorb all of the thoughts and feelings summed into three words. Perhaps he could, he was brilliant and clever.

Waiting for a few moments, he says it back...echoing the sincerity in her voice as he drew closer to her face, barely kissing the corners of her mouth.


	5. Managing

I'm American so if you spot anything that seems out of place, please let me know.

**I do not own DW nor am I affiliated with it. I am not seeking to make profit from this, this merely is just me writing for the benefit of me and others. No infringement meant at all.**

* * *

"Brilliant!" The Tenth Doctor exclaims, a mad grin suddenly stretches onto his wild face as he eagerly turns to face his young companion, Rose Tyler, and causing her to mimic his grin as well-a giggle escaping her while in the process.

"Yeah?" Rose questions, teasing him with a nudge of her elbow against his side as she steps toward the console and watches his busy hands manipulate the six-piloted ship so that the blue box could fly through the time vortex yet again.

"Bloody fantastic, Rose Tyler! You're brilliant, haven't I ever told you that?" He remarks ecstatically, turning around once more to grasp the sides of her face with his large hands after he's set the coordinates for their destination.

"I don't see how you've managed the time," Rose shrugs, still smiling, as she melts in his light touch despite how much energy floods his body. "Stupid apes, yeah. That's what you always say."

"Oh, _Rose Tyler_, but not you! Never you!" The Doctor's grin widens, far more than what should've been possible but a madman with two hearts...nothing could be impossible, could it?

"What are you on about, anyway?" Rose asks after an exchange of silence between the pair, still standing fairly close together; they'd been standing there for so long that Rose began to forget that the Doctor still had his hands on either side of her face. She didn't fully comprehend what set him off, hardly ever did with his seemingly never-ending babbling...talking to the TARDIS and sharing thoughts aloud. The whole point of his riddles always seem to be paraphrased at the end, summarizing himself for the grand conclusion.

"Well, weren't you listening?" The Doctor looks confused and irritated, not impressed that he'd have to repeat himself again.

"...Not really, no..." Rose deliberates for a while, not sure if she wanted to see his face get longer.

Suddenly the warmth of his hands pull away, the neutral temperature of the TARDIS caresses her skin, causing her to shiver sporadically. He turns away, back toward the console, and gestures toward the screen, wanting her to see the coordinates.

"How would you like to go several hundred galaxies away, and I mean _several hundred_ though there are more out there...maybe even billions, ah, well," he waves his hand in the air as if dismissing his newly developing ramble before continuing. "I don't think I've taken you this far..." he says, a mischievous grin plays on his face again and Rose grins like the devil as well.

As he walks around the console, talking with his hands as he mumbles under his breath-occasionally spurting out some information he'd want Rose to pick up on though he knows she wouldn't do that-and stops again, standing beside Rose this time.

"You'd get to see the formation of a planet, a completely different planet so far ahead of your time." The Doctor acts as if he's proposing a thesis to her and waits, patiently...impatiently, he couldn't tell how he felt; standing beside her always managed to calm him, didn't know why though. "I know it doesn't sound like much..."

Rose stops him, and says it's fine...

As long as she's travelling with her Doctor, anywhere is fine.


	6. Yeah

I'm American so if you spot anything that seems out of place, please let me know.

**I do not own DW nor am I affiliated with it. I am not seeking to make profit from this, this merely is just me writing for the benefit of me and others. No infringement meant at all.**

* * *

"Huh," the Madman breathes to the space around him, more so to himself than the ever-alive TARDIS above his head, beneath his feet, and wrapped all around his body. "Interesting..." he continues, hands shoved into his pinstripe suit as he observes the desolate room-different shades of pink-and the more he stares into the room, he realizes, the tighter his hands clench into fists. He doesn't realize just how tightly his hands are curled until one of his hands spasm, sending a quick shock of pain upwards through his arm.

To his indifferent surprise, the TARDIS regularly maintained Rose's room with how she left it on her last departure, before she was saved by Pete and left behind in the alternate universe.

"_Yeah?"_ Her voice, soft and smooth, comes from behind causing him to look over his shoulder, his hearts quickening their pace as he hopes, so desperately hopes, that she was really there. No one. _"How so, Doctor?"_ Questions, so full of questions, always asking stupid questions.

He feels himself flush, occupied completely by heat-intense anger, as he looks away from the doorway and stares, yearningly, at her possessions. _Did she miss those items?_ He ponders, if only to distract himself. To think, her soft human hands once held and placed those items-maybe moved them about until she was satisfied with where they rest-the same hands that held onto his so often. Oh how he missed that very much.

Holding hands and hugs were often exchanged between the pair and though he'd rather not admit it, he grew fond of it...or rather, of her.

"When I leave," the Doctor starts up again, his voice bitter and resentful. So many things he wanted to say that day when he sacrificed a burning sun just to see her again; one last time. "I want this room destroyed..."

So unlike him but he couldn't bear it, the memory of her smothered his thoughts. He had felt so guilty for leaving her there but at least she was safe, safe and unharmed...but without him. Safe, without him by her side to take on wild adventures that almost always ended up getting them killed.

He could feel the TARDIS start to protest and mention that every room from his past companions and past console rooms were archived but he wouldn't have any of it. Mentally he shut a door, not wanting the TARDIS to understand just how much standing in Rose's room pained him.

"_I'll be with you, forever."_ He turns again, fast and eager to catch the source of her voice...maybe some accidental emergency protocol. But when he turned around, completely around this time, he's just staring at the wall on the other side of the door.

Curious, always so bloody curious, he takes a step forward-or, rather, a stride to lessen the distance, he wanted to be as close to her as possible-and uses one hand to rub the back of his neck. "How long?" He asks, one of his two bushy eyebrows quirks up as his eyes search voided space.

There is silence and his erect shoulders begin to sag forward. Was she there? Perhaps, she could see him from a different timeline...who knew. Oh, who was he kidding?

_Always so hopeful for such a lonely traveler._

Turning to face the room, one last time, he tries to bring his flat lips into a smile but the corners of his mouth don't go any higher than they are now. One hand on the door handle, he at last minute notices a picture he hadn't known to exist of them both but it did, and it was there...propped on the night table beside her bed. They were grinning like fools, like the Madman he is and the hopelessly-in-love woman she was, or is, he didn't know if she could love him anymore after leaving her there.

Part of him wants to retrieve the picture, place it in his room so he could stare at her beautiful pink and yellow face all he wanted but he doesn't. He only commits it to memory and shuts the door.

"_Forever."_ She sounded solemn, on the verge of tears but not quite there yet...not quite ready to fall apart. This breaks him inside, makes him hate the room because that's where she slept or escaped to when they fought over such minute things.

"Yeah?" He responds.

Again, nothing and with that he goes whichever direction-not caring about his destination-as the door that concealed Rose's room simply faded, vanished, forever hidden.

He'd ask her again and again if he could, just to hear her say it...just to watch her lips form around the word, lips he wish he could have kissed with more intimate purpose instead of saving her from her daft decision. _Stupid ape_, he thinks but is also pleased she did it in the first place. Rose Tyler, defender of the world..., Bad Wolf... Not so stupid, really. She was one of the brighter ones, most definitely.

"_Yeah..."_

The TARDIS archives Rose's room only, it's a room without a door, because she couldn't let the Doctor forget as much as he'd like to at the moment. Perhaps it would become a room taking up space but the TARDIS didn't seem to mind for she too favored Rose in a way that was different from the Doctor's past companions. But the Doctor doesn't know this, if the thought of her room being erased would help him feel remotely better, then the TARDIS wouldn't deny him that.

But, the TARDIS wouldn't let the Doctor make such a foolish decision for he sometimes could be very dense in his own way. Brilliant but dense.

"_Yeah..."_ She says it one last time, the distance much greater than before, and the Doctor swears, at the worst possible time, he begins to love that word too.


	7. Wrong Coordinates

**I do not own DW nor am I affiliated with it. I am not seeking to make profit from this, this merely is just me writing for the benefit of me and others. No infringement meant at all.**

* * *

"Well..." He starts off, drawing out the one word he's grown fond of saying, the one word that commonly comes before any explanation or debate his many minds can come up.

"Yeah?" Rose manages, almost impatiently, as she feels the Doctor's body weight settle atop her which was growing increasingly uncomfortable but she thinks that that must be better than potential deadweight. She looks up at him with a glint of anger in her eyes as she shifts awkwardly, her arms struggling to rest on either side of her head, the back of her hands brushing against her blonde hair which is strewn in every direction. She looked like she were going to take an offensive stance, ...if she weren't lying down that is.

"Funny story," He continues, stalling, as one corner of his thin lips perks up. He was starting to look hopeful as the words in his mind starting to make more coherent sense, the thoughts not as scattered as they were. "Wrong coordinates." Is all he says and it sounded as if that was all he was _going_ to stay, which to Rose's surprise, upset her just a bit.

She was expecting a long-winded story to explain how he got them in this situation, wrong coordinates and all, but when he doesn't continue after a dragged out pause, Rose's eyebrows shoot up and her lips go slack before she scolds him.

"Is that it? Aren't you going to babble on?" Rose wishes she could step away and then approach him again but in their current situation, that movement was nearly impossible so she squirmed beneath him, having decided that was better than anything else she could do. They were squeezed into a very cramped space and the Doctor thought it would be a good idea if he crawled along inside as well which didn't go over so well as Rose had protested, saying there was hardly any room for her to rummage around to begin with but he persisted otherwise. And here they are.

"You know..." He says, tilting his head to one side (Rose still wasn't sure how he could do such a thing nor could she understand how she could move her arms...if she just ignored the pain that struck her shoulders, elbows, and wrists with each attempt to settle her hands elsewhere.) and puckers out his bottom lip—entering a series of thoughts yet again. Rose was not amused at this point. "I could never quite understand how they could mate in such a confined space..."

"_WHAT?!_" Rose nearly shouts and the Doctor does his best to plug his ears.

"No need to shout! You know how it echoes in here!"

"Actually, no, I don't seeing as this would be my first time ever squeezing into this place!" She retorts back, more calmly than before.

How the bloody hell did they even end up in here to begin with? One moment she and the Doctor were stepping out of the TARDIS and the next, they're meandering into a cold room that looked very much like an industrial-sized morgue freezer (there had to be 500 doors, at the least!). And somehow, someway, Rose had crawled into one—still doesn't exactly know why—followed by the Doctor and a pleasant overhead voice that said something like: "_Enjoy your stay!_"

Not very romantic, if you ask Rose.

When the Doctor starts to ramble on about the mating rituals of the citizens of this planet, Rose shakes her head and squints her eyelids shut and speaks louder than the Doctor.

"Oh rubbish! If you wanted to have a shag, you could have just let me know rather than taking me to some place where they put you into some freezer like you were a dead body!" This gets the Doctor to shut up very quickly and when Rose snaps her eyelids open again, wanting to know what shut him up, she noticed he was blushing.

Again there's silence.

"Wrong coordinates." Is all he mumbles, as if Rose couldn't hear him which causes her to burst out into laughter, tongue caught between her teeth when she settles into a grin.

"That's my excuse and I'm sticking by it, Rose Tyler." The Doctor is grinning too, not as oblivious as he'd like to be when it came to the increasing intensity of their bodies, and when their lips melt into more of a straight line, he finds himself stepping out into the depths of reasonably murky water that paints everything from his knees and below. He lowers his head, pretending he didn't see her eyelids narrow into half-slits, and his lips brush against her slack ones.

"Yeah?" She muses, her lips tickling his.

"Yeah." He agrees, confirming with himelf that it would be all right to kiss her and that he did—his lips lingered at a teasing distance, his hungry lust never being succumbed to as he kissed her lazily and slowly... Tidal waves crashing into the shore casually, pleasantly, and he finds himself enjoying this distance though it was never quite close enough. She responds and finds herself wanting to curl around him like their fingers often did when they held hands but she couldn't, any remaining space that surrounded them made it difficult to do what she wanted to do.

Which was to flip them over and lie on top of him, straddle his hips with their undergarments acting as the only barrier between them, and cup either side of his face with her hands and passionately kiss him in a way she's longed wanted to do; but she was restricted and she squirmed, her soul thrashed against her body as she shifted beneath him, wanting to find the most comfortable way to bring him closer to her body. Her soul thrashed against the confines of limited movement, protested against the restraints but to no avail, it did nothing.

The Doctor stops, his lips unsticking from hers—the dampness of their lips acting as glue, bonding their mouths—and his eyelids flutter open, he looks at her dazed just as she looks at him. Lust sludges through their bodies like clotted oil; it's a slow overtaking, making sure to hit every pent-up nerve in each of their bodies and the Doctor can feel it in more ways than Rose ever could and it drives him mad.

"We didn't have to go to a planet full of mating rituals to do this, did we?" Rose asks with a slow-spreading smile.

"Nah." The Doctor gives his head a shake.

"Didn't think so." Rose chuckles, and before she process what's happened, the Doctor is helping her creep out of the rectangular area, his hands running over the curves of her sides then they run off toward the direction of the TARDIS, howling like a pair of ninnies.

It all happens as a blur.

Their clothes seem to vanish in mid-air and Rose feels a distinct pain then slow-burning pleasure and the kisses... their mouths go everywhere, eager to express all that was denied for too long now. Next, Rose is crying out—a mixture of pain and enjoyment—which alarms the Doctor, causing him to ask her a series of questions until she tells him to shut his mouth and sits upright, kissing his open mouth, exploring his teeth and tongue with her own. It's a mess, all of it was, even the sheets that hugged each corner of the Doctor's bed came detached and curled up around their tangled bodies. Near the end, when Rose is straddling his hips like she originally wanted, she leans down and feels him shiver beneath her—her breasts and erect nipples pressing into his chest—as she kisses his reddened mouth again, tugging and nibbling his bottom lip as they climax, minutes apart from each other, spasming and convulsing in each other's arms. Their breathing shudders and slows down, and as soon as they're calm, they fall asleep like that—Rose on top of the Doctor, a change from earlier, with his arms wrapped lazily around her waist, his hands smoothing along the small of her back and over her bum and hips, even ghosting the inner portion of her thighs.

Rose was the first to doze off, her snores meek and evenly spaced, as the Doctor tries to rationalize what they had just done. As much as he regretted taking advantage of her in such a way (though Rose didn't see it as such), he was also relieved in a sense that he has yet to understand. So while she slept, he talked aloud—more so to himself than to her—as his eyelids drifted to a close.

"I really did intend to take you to a planet where the trees talked and moved from one place to another; incredibly peaceful creatures trees are, nothing like those back on Earth! The people that co-exist with the trees found other means to..." In which the Doctor's words trailed off into a quieting silence.

Rose, having just been vaguely aware of what he was saying, smiled and burrowed her head into his chest.


End file.
